lambvslauWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lamb is a noun, lau is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lamb” is a noun and “lau” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,367
“lamb” frequency rank
#24,267
“lau” frequency rank
63634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lamb lau
Definition Agneau. Tiède.

Letter map: lamb vs lau

Shared letters muted; letters that set lamb and lau apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
lamb
3 ch
lau

Grammar separator: lamb vs lau

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lamb is anoun and lauanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lamb is recorded at frequency rank #39,367, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈlæm\. lau is at rank #24,267, tagged as anadj.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 63634, this pair ranks #80,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lamb vs lau

Shared letters: al. Private to "lamb": bm. Private to "lau": u.

"lamb" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lau" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lambalmb · labm · lambb · lammb · llamb · lmab

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lamb" and "lau" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lamb" is a noun and "lau" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lamb" vs "lau" - which ranks higher?
"lau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,267 in our French list, against #39,367 for "lamb". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "lamb" vs "lau" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lamb" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #80,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lamb" and "lau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lago vs lamb". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #80,990 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list